Who am I?
by Baricuda
Summary: A young man suffers the consequences of a dragon attack, sending his memories into the deepest, most inaccessible parts of his own mind, but when his world turns upside down for him and he is sent spiralling into the very dragon that almost killed him. He has to make a decision, one that will forge who he is, not who he was.


The town was burning under a half moon, the flames were devouring, licking the people, singing and burning, roaring and crackling, its light shrouded by the storm's clouds, rain, and flashes, the sound of the flurry of water falling out of the sky like Thor's tears smothering the peoples screams. Everyone was fleeing, A young-man clad in leather and iron armour was one of the last people on the long ship, It departed. A sharp piercing sound rippled through his bones with the thunderous clap of Thor himself, Lightning struck the people around him, the beast shattered the war-ship into thousands of splinters, each on it's own destructive path...

Drifting in and out of conscientiousness with lightning licking his body, He looked through the shroud of white streaks at the beast's head, a menacing look in its eyes like it was taking pleasure in his captive's pain and anguish... He awoke to thunder, rattling his whole body, his soul, his mind, lightning struck a black object in front of his captor sending two objects plummeting to the ground, something metallic struck the wing of the beast, sending the creature and his payload rocketing to the ground as well...

The warm feeling of sunlight tickled his skin in a flurry of stimulation, the red glow behind his closed eyes woke him. As he opened his eyes, he was met with the blinding light of the sun stabbing at his most acute sense, he quickly shielded his eyes with his hand letting his eyes adjust to it. The birds where chirping, the wind was rattling the leaves and swaying the trees, a surreal calm swept over his body as he lay on the ground.

Everything felt so unreal, it felt like he was dreaming, but something felt so wrong, like a corruption eating away at the far end of his mind. Soon that corruption engulfed him, he came to the realization that he did not know where he was. Panic swept over him like the wind over the trees. He felt like he was floating over his body, so close yet so distant from everything else. Trying to remember what happened, and how he got there evaded him, only pieces came to his mind. He could not remember anything, even that of his old life. "_Who am I?" _he asked aloud as if some one would answer him.

The panic soon subsided as he was in no sort of danger, he silently observed his surroundings, sweeping his eyes back and forth to create a mental map of the area. He had landed in a cove, hard rock walls, a lake in the centre with some waterfalls feeding their clear crystalline solution into the calm surface, he looked deep into his reflection on the waters surface, his face was caked in dry blood shifting his eyes he followed the red trails back to the source, a large gash that ran along his forehead, it had long stopped bleeding. His short brown hair was matted with grime and blood and he was covered in yellow and purple bruises. He looked pitiful, a mess of a person physically and mentally, his body ached and throbbed with each pulse of his heart.

He stared at the water, every and every drop of water that was in that lake enticed the teen, spoke soothing words into his fractured mind, he slowly took off his garments and stepped into the crystal clear water, the grime, dirt and blood that stuck to his body dissipated into the water. His mind was at peace again as the water sapped his pain away into it's cool depths, all he could do was Float in the water, it was an extremely beautiful place, the pink and orange sunset reflected off the surface of the water as the day got darker, night was taking it's turn.

The last of the sun light disappeared, leaving the moon's light to illuminate the boy's surroundings, with the absence of the sun, the air became chilly. He quickly removed himself from the water, his skin developing small bumps in the cold air as he strode over to his garments, he was quick to put them back on, but even then his breaths were sporadic and each one of his mussels twitched.

He scanned the area around him before he took off, he quickly walked around the cove, picking up any pieces of tinder and wood that he could find laying on the soft green moss that lined the ground. With the newly acquired materials he set to work piling the wood, taking the straightest stick that was in the bundel, he rapidly spin the stick against another piece of timber, his hands becoming more and more numb as he rolled the stick in his hands, the two pieces of wood finally started to blacken, sending a ploom of choking smoke into his face, coughing, he brought the wood up to his grass tinder, and poured the bright orange embers into the dry bundle of plant material.

After a moment of smothering, flames roared to life within the tinder, devouring each strand of grass. He quickly put the flaming tinder under the the pile of sticks and wood, the flames from the tinder quickly transferred to the wood, food for the flame to devour, the fire roared to life as the fire consumed the fuel, it's heat buffeting the teen's body causing him to quickly fall asleep, with the fire crackling a sweet lullaby.

~o0o0o~

He awoke in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, dry tears lined his cheeks, he had been crying in his sleep. He dreamed of it...The beast, Razor sharp spines lined it's head and went down the centre of its back, It's two large legs wielding long talons that could cut through flesh and bones with ease, two large spikes protruding from the wings, his hair raising on end at the sight of the foul creature.

He looked around, the camp fire had long gone, out and all that was left was the hot embers, the moonlight and the embers were the only source of light that he had left. He scoured nearby tree roots for some tinder, he pulled off some of the tree's bark and grabbed the twigs off the ground around it. He took one of the embers from the fire and rolled it into a bundle of dry grass, a small flame roared to life and with that, he slid the burning tinder under another pile of wood. With the fire going again, he leaned up against a near by rock to rest his aching body, he did not dare to go to sleep, in fear of what lurked in the depths of his own mind, he tried to keep his eyes open but failed to do so as his eyes drooped down, he gave into the consuming darkness.

He was hard at work the next day, he constructed a rudimentary wooden spear out of a long tree branch and went fishing in the small lake, with each thrust of the spear, the fish tried to flee, but he and the spear proved to be too quick, for the water dwelling creatures. The water bloodied as the fish struggled against its impending doom, slowly it bled out causing the water to turn a deeper crimson, until it died. It was around mid day when he sat down at the fire to cook the fish, they were rather large fish and he had about five of them, if rationed properly, it would be enough food to last him a few days, that is if he smoked them over a hot fire.

He got half way through cooking the fish when the fire burned out, he would loose the fish if he did not cook them right away, so he quickly went off to gather more wood, his search led him half way across the cove to a spot that he had not been to. He passed a tall shrub, when something caught his eye. He looked in its direction and and to his horror, The Thing looked back at him. It was the beast.

~o0o0o~

He was stunned, he was a mere fifty feet from where it lay, the thing that destroyed his life, the thing that drew blood from him, the thing took his memory's away! but something felt so wrong, the look in its eyes was not that of hatred, but of pain, of agony, of sadness and of fear. The Teen's eyes immediately shifted to the creatures wings, one of them stood out. One was completely fine but the other looked broken, it laid helplessly on the ground, a few inches behind where the wing was broken was a piece of metal sticking through, blood was still seeping from the wound.

He felt happy, the beast got what it had coming, but then those eyes caught him again, sadness, something he thought a creature could never feel. He felt it, he felt the beast's pain, he knew that pain all too well, his mind spun in circles as conflicts raged on in his head, he looked at the creature with empathy, yet underlying that was hatred, hatred for what? hatred for the pain that the creature caused him, but that dark emotion could not over shadow the empathy. Outwardly groaning at the mental pain that the conflicts raging in his head caused, he retreated back to the campfire, hesitant to turn his back to such a dangerous animal. Finding the few fish that he had not yet smoked he grabbed the fish that looked the least appetizing a long yellow and black striped eel that had yet to fully stop gulping for the precious water that it lived in.

With the eel slowly wriggling in his hand the teen slowly approached the large winged creature, it's spines gleaming in the evening air, as well as the beads of blood rolling off the surface of the wound. Slowly raising the writhing eel in his hand, he kept his distance, weary that it could lash out like a pinned boar, he let out a startled yelp as the creatures head shot up at the sight of the eel, it's eyes narrowing at the yellow and black striped fish. Quickly lobbing the eel within feet of the beast, the teen watched as the creature slowly inched himself to the fish, each inch more painful than the other, the soft sound of the broken bone flexing under the limp wing. He grabbed it in his jaws, the creatures long sharp teeth sunk into the eel's slick hide, with a quick jerk of the head, it swallowed the fish whole. The teen felt empathetic towards the creature, he did not know why he felt that way, if he was not thinking straight, or if he was fascinated by the creature. He feared the beast at first, but the emotions that he saw the creature express, took some of that fear away, that night he built the fire closer to where the beast lay.

Warm jets of steam shot out of the mouth and nose of the sleeping teen, slowly rising into the chilly morning air. With a quick huff, his eyes cracked open to reveal the dew strewn moss on the floor of the cove, the small droplets capturing the light of the sunrise and emitting it as thousands of small stars of pinkish-orange light. The cove's water, laden with a thin layer of mist, delicately swirling in the ever-changing currents of the life-bringing air, the sound of ten-thousand droplets of water crashing into the surface of the pristine water from their high perches in the stream beds above the rock walls resonated within the enclosure.

The teen let out a long sigh as his hands perched themselves upon the sponge-like moss to support the weight of his body, he got up onto his feet quietly groaning as his body ached. Letting out a drawn out yawn the teen's head swivelled slowly to fully observe the cove's morning beauty, the mist, the light, the creature, something put him off though, it was not in the same place he left it the previous night, some how it managed to drag it's self from the large indent where it had laid previously to the edge of the water where it was slowly lapping up the crystalline solution. With the creature's accomplishment, came it's bane, it's injured wing had been damaged even more.

The creature's wound kept getting worse with each passing hour, the wound developed a large lesion and the scales where flaking off, the creature was in pain but like a true animal tried to hide it away from the world. The teen watched it all happen, the creature progressing to an untimely doom, a doom that would come to a living thing, to a scary thing, to something that did not deserve to die. The boy's mind seized as internal conflicts raged once again, this time between fear and empathy. Without even thinking, he started picking up sticks, plucking tall grass and tearing down vines off the surface of the rocks.

As the creature came back into view, the boy's anxiety picked up and his fear returned from the depths of his own mind, but his feet kept persisting, fifty feet, twenty five feet, fifteen feet, ten feet, the closer he got to the creature the more he felt his fear repelling him away from the beast like magic, five feet he stopped in front of the creature. Both he and the creature could feel the tension rising, bubbling up between them. Both the creature and the teen examined one another trying to determine what the other was going to do, neither wanted to make the first move but eventually the teen's hand stretched towards the beast's wing.

The creature looked at him with worried eyes, but soon those eyes morphed into those of anger. The creature lunged at the teen sending the boy onto his back, he looked at the beast, it's eyes filled with fear and frustration, the creature lunged again, but the boy pulled his feet back in time before they where severed in the mouth of the beast, the teen slid himself as far away from the creature as his hands could pull at the dirt below. The beast readied himself once again, it's massive mussels cocking it's self like a bow ready to release, with one swift motion the mussels propelled it forward, but before it got far, the beast collapsed under it's own injury. The creature let out a weak, painful yelp, before coming to a halt, feet from where the boy laid, petrified, minutes passed, each minute feeling like an eternity for the teen who watched the laboured breaths of the beast.

The beast struggled to stay awake, it's breaths becoming shallower and shallower as the minutes passed, only as soon as the creature's eyes shut did the teen even think of getting up, with the fear once again subsiding, the teen had one chance to save the creature, because when he looked in the creature's eyes, he saw that it was giving up, it's spark was fading from it's weary eyes. The boy slowly approached the beast's figure, weary of another lash out, a close call or something much worse.

The creature just laid there keeping a weak, yet worried eye on the tall boy, such and injury was life threatening with no help, and the beast fully understood that, all his hope fled from him as he prepared for the end. The teen slid past the beast's head to the injured wing and began looking over the wound, the wing bent sharply towards the ground and slightly behind that was a gash with a large piece of metal protruding from the wound. The teen's eyes shifted from the wound back to the creature's eyes, worry flooding into both of them but for two separate reasons.

The boy slowly raised his hand and stretched it out towards the creature's glistening grey scales, he hesitated for a moment, before touching the creature for the first time. He firmly planted his hand on the creature's wing, it's grey scales smooth, but slick with the blood from the wound, with the other hand he reached out and grabbed the large metal shrapnel with his other hand and yanked the piece out, quickly tossing the metal aside. The beast hollered in pain before lowering his head back down to rest on the moss covered ground. Fresh blood seeped from the open wound, but would soon stop as it thickened around the edges of the exposed flesh.

One thing was left to do, put a splint on the broken wing, but such a thing worried the teen, before his brain could fully react, his hands where already grasping the edge of the wing, in a quick motion the boy snapped the bone back into place. There was a pained screech, the beast, despite being weakened turned his head to glare at the boy who stood clutching it's wing. The boy was startled by this, and hesitated for a moment while the creature slowly laid it's head back onto the ground. When the opportunity presented it's self the teen took it, carefully using the vines to tie pieces of wood to the newly set wing. Both the creature and the teen looked at each other for a mew moment's before resetting their focus, the teen returned to the smouldering fire to rest his body against a cold rock, only to find himself staring at the creature in awe, "Well at least I am alive... for now".

~o0o0o~

Days had passed, weeks even, he lost track after the first few days. Each day was warmer than the previous, winter had fully lost its grip on the trees, as the frost receded, the undergrowth flourished as well as animals and birds. Sea birds could be heard in the distance and the roar of the ocean hauntingly echoed within the dense green forest.

The cove, as nourishing as it was, was not enough to sustain the teen and his new friend. The creature ate a lot of the fish that the teen caught, they both started to thin out, the teen mostly as he did not want to end up on the menu himself. There was a passage near the top of the cove's walls with rocks and ledges that lead up to it. He decided to go up into the forest to search for food, he slid underneath a old shield that was lodged tightly in the rocks and made his way up to the top of the rock formation. He quietly wanked through the opening in the rock, a small natural tunnel, it's walls strewn with dew, moss already covered most of the rock, feeding on what little dew rolled down the cold stone surface.

The small cave opened up into the dense coniferous forest, the tall pine trees shrouded most of the sunlight, and what ever sunlight made its way to the forest floor was soaked up by the thick flora. The teen looked around, leaves fluttered in the cool sea breeze that swept under the green canopy, causing the green plants to slowly sway. His mind finally clicked back into place, back to the task at hand, he started looking for anything he could eat, berries, root vegetables, herbs, whatever he could fit into his small woven pouch. Over the course of the day the teen went back and forth to the cove so that he could deposit any thing that he scrounged from the forest.

It was near nighttime when the teen stumbled onto something while on his final trip to the cove, he had gone further than he anticipated and had stumbled onto a clearing where a old cobblestone path cut through the moss and the grass, curious, he followed it with his eyes, and to his surprise it lead to a large bridge. The bridge was built out of sturdy wood, tied together with rope and rusty iron pegs, and on the other side, a building of some sort. He kept low to the ground, and weaved in and out of bushes to avoid being seen by it's inhabitants.

He finally got close enough to see it's details, it was a wooden structure, diamond shaped roof tiles, with large creature shape heads carved into the pillars. A figure in the distance caught his eye, A large man about six and a half feet tall, with a peg leg and a hook for a hand. He was crossing the bridge with a cart of weapons, the teen ducked back down into the bush, and held still, he hoped that the man did not see him, his breaths were short and they where quivering in fear, it was like his own body wanted him to be caught. The man passed and continued down the path. The teen let out a drawn out sigh, "Man that was close" He softly muttered under his breath, He left the area, hoping that no one saw him leave.

He arrived back at the entrance of the cove, the night had already set in, but the moon was full aiding him in the task of finding his way back. He gathered some wood and set up a fire, and started cooking a fish for him and the creature, he garnished his with Some of the herbs that he found in the forest and rounded up any remaining fish for his friend, he put the fish down in front of the creature's snout and began to dig into his meal, he wanted to eat quickly to avoid the dilemma of having to cough one of his fish over, but at that point, it was too late, the creature had already scarfed down all the fish and was looking at him expectantly, It's eyes shifted to the teen's cooked fish as he cocked his mouth open, "Fine have it you pig!" He took the rest of his cooked fish and threw it into the creature's gaping maw, content with what the teen had given him, the creature closed his eyes and curled up by the fire. The creature's wing had fully healed, the only evidence of his injury was some tattering at the end of his wing, but other than that, he was good as new.

A sound in the distance caught the attention of the dragon, it's head swung up and focused into the darkness, and in a blink of an eye he opened his mouth, a flash of brilliant white lightning was shot from within and flew across the lake, it struck the rock face on the other side sending white sparks rippling in the surrounding area. The teen was shocked at what just happened, but then it hit him, _he is a dragon!_, his jaw dropped to the ground. It all started to make sense, _the boat, him taking me..._ he thought dragons were fierce killers, but when he looked into it's eyes, all he could see was pure delight. His eyes shifted, he stared into the swirling flames of the camp fire, the embers softly crackling, the bugs chirping, the serenity of the night. He looked back into the eyes of the dragon, it's pupils focused on the teen, "I think I will call you Bolt".

~o0o0o~

The days where flying by at break neck pace, everything was just a blur to the teen, the same routine every single day did not help at all, fishing in the morning, foraging in the afternoon, and scouting in the evening. The teen was just about done his morning fishing when something caught his eye, something in the water, a silvery glimmer on the bottom of the small lake. He waded through the waist deep water, a trail of silt stirred behind him. The water got deeper as he walked further, he let off a groan as a previously dry and warm area of his body submerged, he finally reached it, a small splotch, something made from metal. He let out a quiet sigh before he dipped his body below the surface of the cold water, he reached down to pick it up, it felt rough to the touch and was stuck in the silt. He pulled harder on the object, little by little the silt gave way, until the object was free, he was finally able to recognize its shape, It was dagger, part of it's metal was rusted, and other parts where caked in mud.

He looked at the weapon, it had a soaked wood handle and deteriorating leather wrap. On one face of the wooden handle had some text carved into it, He was hardly able to read it, Hiccup. H it read. He slowly opened up the pouch at his side and placed the damaged knife inside. He made his way back to the shore, his soaked body shivered as the beads of water rolled off his skin. Back on land the teen made his way over to a pair of rocks, lying by the pair of stones laid a couple trout, he picked them up before continuing to wank over to bolt.

"Hey" he said as he looked at the dragon, it's attention was focused else where, on a bug that quietly fluttered around in the afternoon air, Bolt attempted to capture it, snapping his jaws at it each time the insect got close enough. "Hey" The teen said again, this time while snapping his fingers to gain Bolt's full attention, when the dragon finally looked up at him, he continued "I brought you a little something" The teen slapped the fish down in front of Bolt, he looked at the boy contently, Sparks arced between his spines. One of the sparks jumped off and fount's it's way to the teen's pouch, it continued down his leg and into his foot. He winched in pain and dropped the pouch, but the sparks kept striking it, like they where drawn towards it's contents. I kicked the cloth bag away from Bolt, to where the sparks were not able to reach it. He picked the bag back up, and opened it, the only content's of the bag was the dagger, and riddling the surface of the metal was black rings where the sparks struck.

Lightning struck the water's surface, the water vaporizing with each lick from the sparks, the gas hissing as it rose into the air. It was a new fishing technique that the teen had learned, Bolt would shoot lightning at the water and the fish within a few meters would float to the surface. He and Bolt where able to spend more time together fishing in the morning, and they were no longer hungry all the time, as they had all the fish they could need.

The teen was about to go out foraging when something caught him by surprise, it was a loud roar, but it did not come from bolt. The boy looked at him, his eyes darted off and looked into the distance behind the teen, the dragon's eyes narrowed, he jumped into a upright position, snarling at the whatever made the roar. The teen jumped a little as heard a thud behind him, a chill ran down his spine, his palms became clammy and his mussels started to tense. Bolt's mouth opened, "No Bolt" The teen looked at him with a stern expression, Bolt slouched back in frustration. The boy turned his head to the side and out of the corner of his eyes, he could see a large black smudge and human figure standing behind him.


End file.
